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Italian prosecutors believe that thousands of small, lower-end pizza shops in Naples may be using wood from coffins dug up in the local cemetery to cook their pizzas. From the article: "'A gang might have set up a market for coffins sold to hard-hearted owners of bakeries and pizzerias looking to save money on wood,' Il Giornale said. According to tradition, Neapolitan pizza should be cooked in a stone oven with an oak-wood fire."

This story has all the hallmarks of an urban legend. Unscrupulous business owners commit impossible to verify moral misconduct, selling a fattening product to unsuspecting consumers (who therefore cannot be held blameless).

Naples' graveyard has long been hunting ground for thieves: last year, 5,000 flower pots were stolen from the cemetery.

While I assume there's more evidence than is being repeated in this article, does it strike anyone else like there's a big gulf between stealing a flower pot versus digging up a grave, throwing out the corpse, and then breaking up the wood for an oven fire?

It all strikes me as a lot of work to save a few bucks.

Not to mention that you'd need the appropriate casket wood. Recent and high-end caskets have wood that's often heavily treated, which could release dangerous fumes when burned (dangerou

It's like the stories (told by some bloke down the pub) that they'd found a freezer full of cats such and such a Chinese takeway.

Right. Because it'd totally be worth your while to go crawling round alleys all night with a cleaver & a can of tuna going "here kitty kitty" rather than buying chicken from the wholesaler for a couple of bo-did a pound...